Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Season 8 superfinal, games 51-60

After 60 games in the Komodo - Stockfish superfianl match, Komodo leads by 4-1 with 55 draws. The last 10 games have been draws, mostly uneventful.

In game 51 the Komodo's eval jumped a little when Stockfish chose not to exchange pieces in the center. It took only a few moves for the eval to get back down, not clear what Komodo saw there. In the reverse game Stockfish had increasing evals up to 0.7, chance to get a game back. After move 30 only the queens and rooks were left with pawns, both engines had an advanced passed pawn. However, when queens were exchanged and the passed pawns eliminated the evals plummeted to 0 in a drawn rook endgame.

Komodo held a small eval advantage for about 25 moves in game 53. The advantage disappeared as the pieces that were left started to be exchanged, until a drawn queen ending was reached. In game 54 Stockfish held the eval advantage longer, each engine staying behind almost static lines. When files started to open to a QRB vs QRN game, Stockfish had a passed pawn but Komodo countered with control over the 2nd rank. The threats balanced out to another draw.

In game 55 Stockfish seemed very cramped on the king side with many pieces and no room to move. Nevertheless it was an effective fortress which Komodo could only penetrate by exchanging pieces. By the time the black king was exposed it turned out that the white king was vulnerable to Stockfish's perpetual check, and a draw. Game 56 started with a series of captures that resulted in a RRB vs RRB endgame on move 17. The game continued until move 40 but the evals were 0 long before that.

In game 57 the center and queen side were blocked by pawns, and for a while it looked as though Stockfish as black had some pressure on the white king. The pressure evaporated after a few captures, and the pieces left could not move the pawn blockade, draw. In game 58 Stockfish again got a little excited with evals up to 0.5. Komodo's defense showed that Stockfish had nothing, pawns again blocking any progress in a RRN vs RRN endgame.

In game 59 the center and king side were stablilized early in the game, and the queen side was used to exchange pieces. The remaining pieces stated to shuffle until the draw was declared. Game 60 reached a BNN vs BNN endgame in move 24, and then became a long shuffle contest since Stockfish kept a small positve eval. The eval decreased to 0 when the 50 move rule got close and the draw followed.